John Abbott - Scimitar

Which was sort of what Sonny had told her on the train.

“It’s important that I get in touch with him,” she said.

“I’m sorry, Miss, but...”

“Before she dies,” Elita said.

There was a long sigh on the line.

“How do you spell the last name, please?” the woman asked.

“Hemkar. H-E-M-K-A-R.”

“Just a moment, I’ll connect you with the page operator.”

“No, I don’t want to page him,” Elita said. “He isn’t in Los...”

The line went dead.

She’s cut me off! Elita thought. The stupid...

“Page Operator,” another female voice said.

“Yes, this is Elita Randall,” Elita said, “I’m calling from New York City.”

“Yes, Miss, whom did you wish paged?”

“I’m trying to get some information on Dr. Hemkar,” she said. “I don’t want him paged, he isn’t...”

The line went dead.

Elita visualized a page going out all over the hospital, speakers blaring, “Dr. Hemkar, please call the operator, Dr. Hemkar, please pick up,” or whatever the hell it was they announced in hospitals.

“Hello?” a voice said.

A male this time. Somewhat preppy sounding.

“Hello,” she said, “this is Elita Randall, I’m calling from New York. I’m trying to locate Dr. Krishnan Hemkar, but the page oper...”

“You and everybody else,” the man said.

“What?” she said.

“Who’d you say this was?” he asked.

“Elita Randall. Who’s this?”

“Dr. Welles,” he said. “Benjamin J. Welles. Did you say New York?”

“Yes, I’m calling from New York. I’ve lost track of Sonny...”

“Is he in New York?”

“Yes. Well, yes.”

“You don’t know how happy this makes me. We’ve been worried stiff out here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he disappears from sight without a word, we thought he’d been kidnapped or something. That’s why I answered the page. I thought it might be someone who...”

“Well, no. Actually I’m trying to locate him, too. Would you know his mother’s phone number here in New York?”

“I thought she lived in Paris.”

“No, he came here to see her. New York. She’s here in New York.”

“That’s funny, his father works in Paris, I’m pretty sure that’s where they live.”

“No, she was sick, and he...”

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?”

“Well, Sonny Hemkar,” she said, “how many Sonny Hemkars can there be? I mean, that isn’t exactly a common...”

“From Los Angeles, right?”

“That’s where he... excuse me, but how well do you know him?”

“We’re very close friends.”

“And he... never mentioned he was going to see his mother in New York?”

“Never mentioned he was going to New York at all . I’ve got to tell you, his job is at risk out here. If you see him, tell him BJ said he’d better...”

“When did you see him last?”

“I had brunch with him a week ago Sunday. Called him a little after eleven that night, got no answer.”

Because he was already on the train by then, Elita thought.

“And you don’t know where he is now?” she asked.

“No, I don’t. I wish I did.”

So do I, she thought.

“If you see him, tell him he’d better have a damn good story for Hokie.”

“Who?”

“Dr. Hokinson. He’ll know.”

“I’ll tell him.”

If I find him, she thought, and hung up.

He lowered the windows on the rental car the moment he realized he was getting close to the ocean. Salt air wafted in over the marsh grass. He took a deep breath and turned the car onto a narrow, packed sand road that was undoubtedly impassable in any kind of heavy rain. Today, though, the sky was a magnificent robin’s egg blue, wisps of clouds brushed across it by a mild and languid breeze. He heard now the hollow rasping sound of surf rolling in against the shore. And smiled.

The house loomed suddenly ahead.

He looked at his watch.

Three twenty-seven.

It had taken him an hour and forty minutes to drive here from the city.

He parked the car, got out, stretched, and looked up at the house. The smile was still on his face. There was nothing quite like this in Southern California, where he had spent the past six years of his life. The beach houses out there — even those that were unabashed reproductions of Cape Cod cottages — had none of the authentic look that this one so effortlessly achieved. Here, the outside walls were covered with sun-bleached shingles the color of seagulls. The roof was shingled with cedar shakes streaked brown and black, eroded by time and weather, twisted and gnarled. Sand-drifted pieces of flagstone led to a front door painted a blue faded paler than the sky.

Everywhere around the house, tufted sea oats and plumed pampas grass leaned in the mild ocean breeze, gently rustling. Something spidery and green sent long tendrils across the sand, trailing off in every direction. Sonny climbed a dozen or more rickety wooden steps to the top of the high dune and looked out over a beach more magnificent than any he’d seen in California. The Atlantic Ocean stretched endlessly before him, the roiling water a bluish-grey reflecting sunlight in tiny sparkling glints, waves rushing in against the sand, tumbling and receding again, whispering. He took a deep breath, all at peace with himself and the world. This was exactly what he wanted.

All he’d said to Arthur was, “I need that safe house.”

Walking back to the car, he unlocked the trunk and took from it the single large bag he had carried from Los Angeles. Fishing in his pocket for the key Arthur had messengered to the hotel, he walked up the sand-strewn flagstone path to the pale blue door at the front of the house. There was an absolutely appropriate tarnished brass knocker and doorknob. He inserted the key into the keyway, twisted it, and gently shoved the door inward.

Sunlight splashed through the French doors at the far end of the room, beyond which he could see a spacious deck overlooking the beach and the ocean. There was an immediate aroma that brought back to him memories of every summer seaside house he’d ever known, a combination of mustiness and damp, mildew and salt air. The room itself was furnished casually, almost sloppily, with slip-covered sofas and easy chairs that looked as if they’d come from a thrift shop on La Cienega. A rolltop desk stood against one of the unpainted cedar walls. There was a standing floor lamp with its shade hanging crooked, and a footstool with an upholstered needlepoint top. Rows and rows of books on rickety plank shelves hung on the cedar wall opposite the desk, where a partially opened door revealed a simple kitchen with more windows facing the sea. It was altogether charming, exactly what a beach house — not to mention a safe house — should be.

He carried his suitcase up a steep, narrow staircase to the floor above, where a door at the top of the landing opened onto one of the bedrooms, again facing the sea and streaming late afternoon sunlight. A canopied bed with a paisley-patterned quilt on it was just to the left of the entrance door. The sliding glass door opposite the entrance door opened onto a deck narrower than the one below. He slid open the door and went to stand outside.

The sea moved restlessly below.

There was a house close by on the left, architecturally similar to this one, but with a weathered wooden fence on all sides save the one facing the ocean. Some fifty yards to the right, there was yet another house, storied and gabled with a wide deck running along its oceanfront side. On the northern side of the house, the side facing Sonny, there was a hidden second-story deck some twelve feet square, catching only scant sunlight now, a wooden fence guaranteeing complete privacy — except for a narrow sunwashed section of deck against the wall of the house, visible from where Sonny stood.